The Inside Story of Online Fundraising and Fundable.com

Margo Locust, The publisher of Fabulous Floors Magazine, decided to step out of the proverbial box in order to raise money to grow the magazine. Fabulous Floors Magazine is a consumer floor covering and design magazine, which connects with high end consumers as well as flooring retails, distributors and manufacturers. Margo purchased the magazine two years ago following the death of one of the partners. With the magazine industry and print in general changing, Margo was aware the magazine needed to build new connections with their customers.

“I was reading about online fundraising and decided why not try it, said Publisher and owner, Margo Locust. I want to try some new things in the magazine and needed to raise some money. I reached out and found Fundable.com and Chris Justice.”

I worked with Margo on the profile for Fabulous Floors Magazine; the process was so interesting I decided to reach out to Fundraise Manager, Chris Justice. Chris has been kind enough to fill in some gaps about online fundraising.

How did you get involved in online fundraising?

My background is in finance, and I’ve always had a strong passion for entrepreneurship. I worked in finance for a few years after graduating from college and decided that corporate finance wasn’t for me. I wanted to feel like I was making an impact on emerging businesses, and work in a more hands-on environment. I re-connected with my friend and Fundable co-founder Eric Corl, who was in the early stages of launching Fundable. I joined the team and have been here ever since.

Chris, what is online fundraising all about?

Online fundraising allows companies to engage new audiences and quickly test their acceptance in the market. At fundable.com, we help businesses connect with potential investors and customers using our online funding platform. Companies create a profile then reach out to different communities and investors, which could include anyone from an engineer at Google to the restaurateur in Nevada.

Traditionally this type of outreach has been done manually- with business plans and in-person meetings, but by utilizing the exposure of the Internet and the Fundable platform, entrepreneurs can now connect with a much larger number of people to grow their company.

How do you personally help companies?

I work with each company that hires us to help execute their fundraise, focusing on fundraise strategy, structure and presentation of the business.

Chris, you sound like you’re personally involved with all of these companies.

You’re right. We are all passionate entrepreneurs and know what it means to build a successful company. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing one of our companies secure funding and take a step forward. We are experienced in a wide variety of industries, and any company with a great idea and strong team is going to interest us. We focus most of our energy on coaching founders on how to grow their business and present it effectively to potential investors.

Fundable helps businesses create compelling profiles. We have an in-house team of writers and designers. The profile allows companies to publicly present their team, product, and vision for growing the company.

For equity fundraises, we also provide Business Plan section of the profile that is only accessible to accredited investors. An investor will see the public profile, then can request access to the high level details and deal terms. After they get an approval, they can show their interest by ‘committing’ funds to the company. This allows a company to gauge the investor’s interest and take the conversation offline to establish a relationship; in the end, this relationship will hopefully lead to a successful partnership in growing the company.

What’s the best thing to do if you’re interested in pursuing fundable.com?

The first step is to visit www.fundable.com and start building a company profile. We always encourage anyone who is interested to check out the other companies that are fundraising on the site to get an idea for how to successfully present their opportunity.

Our team reviews each company to assess where they are in their life cycle and what they need to continue their growth. This way, we can determine if the company is a good fit for our platform. We only work with entrepreneurs and startup companies because this is where our experience lies, and we believe this community will be the catalyst for continued economic growth and innovation.